Blazers dealing with win now win mode/zach lowe article

Win now. Not no. Autocorrect is dope

 

A very long article with a lot of repetition, but interesting nonetheless. Lowe thinks the Blazers are "ripe for a trade."

 

Cant really disagree with Lowe here. Will be interesting to see what Olshey does. It was obvious to some (while most of you gave us massive shit for saying so) that the Turner deal was ridiculous. I still have faith Crabbe can turn it around though.

Unfortunately, the only piece we really have to grab a star bigman, would be a package around CJ.......

 

Freudian slip?

 

Don't we have to keep developing our players?

 

But he also says Crabbe and Turner are untradable.

 

Layman and Vonleh - yes. But we already know the career trajectories of the rest of the rotation players - time to try to move some of them (Aminu, Davis, Crabbe, Turner, Meyers, Plumlee) for someone who fits the remaining roster better.

 

Even Turner couldn't believe how much he got. I think that is the thing that bothered me the most about that deal; that Olshey paid more than he needed to, and that is what makes Turner impossible to trade, not to mention affecting future decisions to avoid paying too much luxury tax.

 

Yeah, unless both Turner and Crabbe turn it around, those two contracts have boned us. At least one of them needs to be traded, but at their current level of play they're both untradeable.

 

However, I have to keep reminding myself that the Wizards traded for Rashard Lewis after he got that ridiculous contract. If there's something we can count on in the NBA it's that there's ALWAYS a handful of idiots running teams across the league - Old Boys Clubs will always have idiots in high places.

 

Names he brought up are the ones we've all bandied about:

Lopez (yes, please)
Monroe (yuck not with his contract)
Vucevic (yes, please)
Chandler (why not)

But the Nurkic namedrop is really interesting. If DEN is the least bit interested in moving him, we need to go all in. This guy is going to be a boss. He's the worse prospect between him and Jokic (in the long run), but DEN doesn't have minutes to play both. Neil needs to on this.

Koufos could be interesting as well. Could be a Rolo esque undervalued addition.

 

Thought this was pretty much saying dude isn't playing this year...


"Festus Ezeli's long-term health is (to be generous) uncertain"

 

We've been talking about getting Brook Lopez for years, if his foot is okay I would love to have him. I'd even take Monroe at this point because the big men are so awful here (I know that would do nothing for our post defense though).

 

Zach just released a podcast with Marc Stein. Talking rumors and stuff.

http://www.espn.com/espnradio/play?id=18121580

 

"In that sense, it's almost encouraging how cartoonishly bad the Blazers have been at almost every aspect of defense. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit to pluck. They are a confused train wreck in transition, even when everyone gets back; guys just run to the wrong spots and leave someone wide open.... Opponents are straight toasting the Blazers one-on-one, and feasting on botched rotations that follow. Miscommunication is rampant. Well-meaning help-and-recover missions have ended in catastrophe. The Blazers should be above this nonsense. It carries the whiff of a team that thought it might be good enough to coast in some games."

Should Stotts crack down in some way?
What are the consequences for playing lackadaisical defense every game?

 

Stein: "I mean, Portland, everyone expects them to make a deal... or three with all the guys they signed this summer."

More unrelated:
Zach: Everyone asks me if Paul George is being mentioned as a trade candidate. Pacers don't want to trade him, but he's going to be up for an extension in 2018 with Boogie.

I'd trade CJ for PG in an instant.

 

I could see George and Boogie trying to team up somewhere. The Pacers, like us, are looking treadmill-tastic and Sacramento is Sacramento.

 

Lotta talk around the 43 min mark.

Paraphrasing:

Zach: I would be blown away if Portland didn't make a trade this season. They have a lot of guys and centers, but they're going to explore the market for centers.

Stein: I don't know how easy it is to move a center, but they also have a lot of wing guys they can move. They didn't sign all those guys to make the next step from 44 wins to 55, as much as they are trying to set up for the next roster move.

Zach: There is no way Portland made these moves for hopes that THIS team will win 55 games. Dame might get even better in two years, and that's the thing that pops for this team. When do you start talking about trading CJ? He and Dame are really good together offensively, but there is a thought that these two will never be any good together defensively.